Pledges unfulfilled for SDSU coach firing

University hoped for donors to cover costs of Chuck Long's departure

San Diego State President Stephen Weber, right, answers media questions about the firing of head football coach Chuck Long on Nov. 23, 2008. He appeared at a news conference along with Don Oberhelman, left, who was then SDSU's senior associate athletic director.
— U-T photo

San Diego State President Stephen Weber, right, answers media questions about the firing of head football coach Chuck Long on Nov. 23, 2008. He appeared at a news conference along with Don Oberhelman, left, who was then SDSU's senior associate athletic director.
/ U-T photo

On Nov. 23, 2008, San Diego State announced the firing of head football coach Chuck Long and stated that over $1 million had been raised to pay for it.

“We’ve raised some private money to enable us to do it,” said Stephen Weber, president of SDSU. The amount committed for it was “just over a million dollars in private money,” Weber said at the news conference.

Records obtained by The Watchdog show that the $2.1 million cost of firing Long was only recently paid fully. Less than a fifth of the cost, or $405,000, came from private donors.

The money came largely from a $1 million check from the University of Michigan to buy out the SDSU contract of Long’s successor, Brady Hoke, who left SDSU to become the Michigan head coach in January. That check was dated April 4.

Greg Block, a university spokesman, said in a statement on behalf of Weber that pledges from donors were not fulfilled.

“At the time of the November 2008 press conference, we had a football transition plan that focused primarily on philanthropic monies, which is what President Weber discussed,” Block said. “President Weber believed we had firm commitments from those pledges. However, some of those pledges did not materialize for a variety of reasons that we are not at liberty to discuss.”

Block emphasized that “no state funds, student fees or tuition money was used for the transition cost.”

The Michigan money otherwise could have helped the SDSU athletic department relieve financial pressures since 2009 that have led to the elimination of 25 full-time jobs.

At the time of Long’s firing, Weber said that a big issue in deciding to make the move was “to find out if we can find other money. If we could not have, we wouldn’t have been able to move forward.”

He said then that Athletic Director Jeff Schemmel came to him roughly two weeks earlier and told him they needed to make a change in coaches. The next question, Weber said, was, “Do we have the financial option to make a change?’”

“Once we found out that that was a real option, then Jeff proceeded to make the decision and notify Chuck,” Weber said then.